Two Sides Campaign Gains Traction as Major Banks, Utilities and Telecoms Change Marketing Campaigns Used to Promote Electronic Services

CHICAGO (November 3, 2014) – Today, Two Sides North America, Inc. announced that over 30 leading North American companies have committed to remove “anti-paper” based claims being used to promote electronic billing and other e-services as more environmentally-friendly.

The Two Sides campaign is engaged with top Fortune 500 organizations in the banking, utilities and telecommunications sectors as well as digital service companies. Alan Anglyn, Sprint’s Director of IT Care & Billing Services Business Management notes, “One of the benefits of our relationship with Two Sides has been the opportunity to reflect on how we communicate our efforts. This caused us to review Sprint’s messaging about electronic media across multiple touch points.”

“Many in the graphic communications industry, from family forest owners to paper mills, printers, mailers and related businesses, are tired of seeing misleading environmental claims about print and paper. Our campaign has been focused on educating corporate marketers on the unique social and environmental benefits of print and paper, and to ensure that claims used to promote e-services are based on credible science and facts,” states Two Sides North America President Phil Riebel.

Tell me if you’ve heard this before: Print marketing is dead. Customers don’t respond to it anymore. It’s too expensive. You can’t personalise it. It’s a thing of the past, and if you’re still doing print marketing, you’re living in the Stone Age.

I’m sure you have. It’s a common misconception that print marketing is dead and gone, never to be seen again.

In reality, print marketing isn’t disappearing; it’s thriving. No, it’s not the same as it was a decade ago. It has evolved with the times, but print marketing is fundamentally still print marketing. While the world is going digital and the web keeps getting more crowded, there is still an opportunity to reach customers offline.

Direct mail still holds a 43% share of total retail advertising, and 76% of small businesses say their ideal marketing strategy involves both digital and print marketing efforts.

Print is still very much alive, and here are a few ways you can use print marketing to differentiate your brand.

Before you send your students off to school, learn how to make this school year the most successful it could possibly be. Careful to not pack that digital tablet in your backpack! Print is still the way to go…

“Comprehension may suffer when students read on the digital devices now flooding into classrooms, an emerging body of research suggests… When reading on screens, for example, people seem to reflexively skim the surface of texts in search of specific information, rather than dive in deeply in order to draw inferences, construct complex arguments, or make connections to their own experiences. Research has also found that students, when reading digitally, tend to discard familiar print-based strategies for boosting comprehension.”

Stagnant development in personality growth, inexperience in human interaction, and brain damage, are a few of parents’ worst nightmares. Most parents want the absolute best for their children and will try to help them achieve this any way possible. One easy tip: rethink handing over your electronic devices to your children.

Unfortunately, it is often hard to find objective information about the pros and cons of using screen technology in young children since most of the information available comes from companies whose profits depend on the sales of those devices. Skilled Marketing Specialists around the world have been so smart as to label new technologies- such as smart phones, tablets, as e-books- “interactive” to make them appear far more intellectual and beneficial than its predecessors of the “old technologies” such as television and video games.[1]

However, despite the arduous task of discovering unbiased information, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Child was able to uncover plenty of enough information and submit report which displayed the staggering results of electronic screens and children.[2]

To date, research tells us that screen time has no real benefit for infants and toddlers; for older children, the nature of the content they experience and the amount of time they spend with screens are things to be greatly considered. “Games and digital activities that limit children to a predetermined set of responses have been shown to diminish creativity. Exposure to media violence is linked to aggression, desensitization to violence, and lack of empathy for victims. Media violence is also associated with poor school performance.”[3]

Even the visual aspects of screen watching can have adverse effects; preschoolers who watched 20 minutes of a fast paced cartoon show has shown a negative impact on executive function skills, including attention, the ability to delay gratification, self-regulation, and problem solving.[4] Campaign for a Commercial-Free Child reported preschoolers spend anywhere from at least 2.2 hours to as much as 4.6 hours per day with screen media.[5]

“Research tells us that developing children thrive when they are talked to, read to, played with and given time for creative play, physically active play, and interactions with other children and adults.”[6] Knowing this, it could be translated that placing an electronic screen in front of your child does not ignite development. In fact, limiting a child’s time with an electronic screen is as important as monitoring its content.

Extensive screen time has been linked to childhood obesity, sleep disturbance, and learning, attention, and social problems. Screen time takes away from what is important and healthy for a child’s development and growth; it takes children away from hands-on creative play that develops imagination and creativity; it also takes children away from caring adults. “The so-called interactive electronic books- in which screen images respond to touch with sound effects or words or simple movements- are less likely to induce the kind of adult-child interactions that promote literacy than traditional books do.[7]

Do not choose electronic screens; they only inhibit children from their full potential. Be responsible and care. Julia Steiny, the founding director of the Youth Restoration Project, explains, “…letting children get sucked down the rabbit hole of e-entertainmentis parental misbehavior. Facts are stacking up.”[8] Studies and reports show how important interactions are between parents and children; choose a healthy and beneficial activity such as reading — printed books — after seeing the devastating causes of electronic screen use.

The P.A. Hutchison Company has been providing printing excellence since 1911. Contact us today to order your print and to “say NO” to electronic media.

About Our Company

The P.A. Hutchison Company is a family owned printing company that has been in business OVER 100 YEARS!! We specialize in book manufacturing but are very flexible with our capabilities. Contact us for more information and to let us print for you!